There are lots of articles about economics just now, important because we seem to be in uncharted territory. “Trillions” and “billions” are suddenly words tossed around like confetti, showered down here and there in the excitement of the moment; but a real mess to clean up.

There is only so much you can do to defend yourself, but forewarned gives you a little better chance of surviving.

Congress just upped the “stimulus” bill by another $25 billion to $825 billion. This is a bill designed to provide lots more money for government. It will not stimulate the economy. It will not preserve jobs, and it will not create jobs. Much of it will simply be wasted.

Brian Riedl, a fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage Foundation has a few important questions:

President-elect Obama claims that spending approximately $899 billion will create 3,675 million new jobs. That comes to $217,000 per job. This doesn’t sound like a very good value, especially with the national average salary around $40,000. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just mail each of these workers a $40,000 check?

Politicians say deficit spending will expand the economy (as if President Bush’s $300 billion budget deficits brought economic nirvana). If that were true, then the current $1.2 trillion deficit — the largest in history — would already be rescuing the economy. It’s obviously not. So why would $800 billion more of the same suddenly end the recession?

We’re told that government spending will add new spending power to the economy. But Congress doesn’t have a vault of money waiting to be distributed. Every dollar lawmakers “inject” into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. If government borrows the money from American investors, investment spending drops accordingly. If it’s borrowed from foreigners, net exports drop accordingly. How does borrowing $800 billion from one group of people and giving that $800 billion to another group of people make us wealthier?

Mr. Riedl hasseven more questions for those who are concerned about the plans that Congressional Democrats are creating in their “New, New Deal”. Read them all here. You will be glad you did.

Getting Congress to agree to spend billions of dollars to “stimulate” the economy is the easy part. These are the liberal ideas they’ve had tucked away in some cupboard for years. It is all just more money and control for government, and it will not save jobs, create jobs, or improve the economy.

Congressional Democrats never, never have a failure. Some things don’t work as well as expected, obviously because they did not appropriate enough money. So they will appropriate more money, and do it over again. And again. And again.